This Twisted Thing Called Love
by Collie Parkillo
Summary: He hadn't planned for this to happen, and he hated himself for letting it happen under his plan. Not a Plan, like Barkovitch's, but just a plan. It hadn't started out as something he thought he would have to put in his mind as a strict plan, but now he was fighting to keep it as his top priority. Gavries angst.


**Author's Note: thanks a lot aurora now the mcvries feels infected me too. **

**Disclaimer: The Long Walk is not mine.**

_This Twisted Thing Called Love_

He hadn't planned for this to happen, and he hated himself for letting it happen under his plan. Not a Plan, like Barkovitch's, but just a plan. It hadn't started out as something he thought he would have to put in his mind as a strict plan, but now he was fighting to keep it as his top priority.

See, Pete McVries wanted to die. That was the whole reason he was here, after all. This whole goddamn thing was just rigged, he knew he would die, and that was exactly what he wanted. His little life wasn't worth anything.

But people are stupid, he thought. People never carry through with what they say they'll do. And that was what had happened.  
Because walking next to him was a lanky boy with shaggy brown hair and an obnoxiously bright smile. This goddamn boy had weeded his way into his heart and he couldn't get him out. Like a weed, wrapping around his aortic valves and stopping the pumping of that dark, suicidal blood.

Somehow Ray Garraty had obstructed his plan of suicide, and he hated him for that.

The thing about Garraty was that he didn't know about all the bad things that went on inside people's heads. He was innocent, he was sweet, and even though they were roughly the same age, Garraty seemed years younger. He was a little kid playing soldiers, and that was part of why McVries had found it in his black heart to love Ray Garraty.

Love. He hadn't thought of that word for a long time. Not since Pris. He'd thought that Pris was his one true love, the one that he wanted more than anybody else in the world. Priscilla had been the sun and the stars and the moon and the sky and if the world had burnt down just then, Priscilla would have been the thing on his mind.

It was different with Garraty. Garraty and Priscilla were two different people. Priscilla was greedy, and Garraty was kind. For the most part. Priscilla had cut him to pieces, Garraty had yet to hurt him in any way other than by being naive.

It was cute, sort of. Pris had had some cute little quirks, but somehow McVries couldn't help but find Garraty's wide-eyed naivete adorable. Hell, the whole boy was adorable. He had dark eyes, framed by long eyelashes, and his hair was a chestnut color and he was always blowing it out of his eyes.

He looked like a child, in some ways, too. He was small and McVries thought that he was beautiful. It was such a feminine word to apply to him, but it was accurate. Ray probably didn't know it, but he was really fucking beautiful. Beautiful face, mostly smiling, beautiful lips, although chapped, beautiful neck, just poking out from his dark green jacket...

"Pete?"

"What." McVries said, irritated at being brought out of his fantasy.

"I don't know. You just seemed like you were thinking really hard."

_Yeah, real hard, _thought McVries._ In the nearly literal sense of the word. _"Then why did you decide to interrupt me? That, right there, Garraty, is genius."

Garraty laughed lightly. "I was just curious. What goes on in that head of yours, Pete?"

McVries gave an overly dramatized sigh. "Dark, dark things." He was half-joking, and hoped that Garraty took it as a joke.

Garraty, unfortunately, didn't. "Should I be worried?"

"No."

A shot went off behind them, making Garraty jump, and McVries' hand instinctively went to Garraty's shoulder. It wasn't intentional in the least, and it almost scared McVries that he wanted to chase away all of Ray Garraty's fears and just push him out of the whole damn Walk. He shouldn't be here.

But Peter McVries was supposed to be here. He was supposed to die. He'd die, and he'd just pray that Garraty wasn't alive to see it happen.

His hand still hadn't left Garraty's shoulder, and he resisted the urge to put his arm around Garraty's bony shoulders. "That wasn't anyone we know, was it?" Garraty's voice tightened when he was worried, it sounded forced, like something was squeezing him from the inside. McVries hated that voice. It made him want to take Garraty into his arms and stroke his hair and tell him that it would all be alright because he would protect him. A very un-Pete McVries like thing to do, but one that he wanted to do nonetheless.

"No. Just another number in the body count." That song about ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall came to mind. Ninety-nine Walkers who'll die on the road, ninety-nine walkers who'll die... _Huh. Just when I think I can't get anymore morbid and disgusting, I do._

"What about Stebbins?"

"Do you really think Stebbins would go out that early? Stebbins is smart, Ray. Smarter than your ass."

"I bet my ass is a lot smarter than yours."

McVries rolled his eyes and clapped Garraty on the back. "I'm sorry, Ray, but I don't think so."

Garraty smiled his much-too happy smile. That was another thing that drove McVries crazy. Garraty's smile. It was a kind of smile that he hadn't seen in a long time, a totally pure, honest smile. One that he could never quite manage.

His smiles were crooked smirks. Perhaps his face had been forever distorted by the scar on his cheek.

"Garraty?"

"Yeah, Pete?

"Ever thought about being queer? Or at least being...not just girls?" Damn, that sounded dumb.

"What're you suggesting?"

"Nothing. But there's something I want to do before I die."

A frightened look passed over Garraty. "You're not going to die."

"Yeah, I am. And I want you to make my death the best thing that's ever happened to me. So make me a promise, Ray Garraty."

"Yeah, anything you want, Pete." He wasn't expecting anything too horrible. This was probably just another one of McVries' insane ramblings that would just be forgotten the next day.

"When I'm going to die, and man, you're going to know when I'm going to die. You'll be with me. I want you to do whatever you feel. I don't care whether you want to fucking slap me in the face, but do whatever you feel you should do."

"...Alright."

There was a long silence between the pair, and McVries wondered how much he would regret making Garraty promise that.  
Days passed, things never got easier, treasured friends died, blood was spilled on the pavement of the road, and yet somehow McVries was still alive. He'd seen his rivals die, but somehow he never went down with them.

And he only found himself more in love with Garraty over time. He was an asshole sometimes, and too naive, but he loved Ray Garraty. He'd suggested it once or twice, offered to jerk him off just to fulfill whatever pleasures Garraty was missing, but Garraty never really noticed.

May fifth was a nice day. The sun was shining and the crowd was wild. It was a nice day to die, in front of seemingly millions of people.  
An ache had started in his feet and gone up from his legs to his heart and his arms. It wasn't just sore feet, it was something there in his whole body. Like he just couldn't go on, no matter how hard he tried.

"Ray?"

"Yeah?"

"It's time to sit down."

A look of horror appeared on Garraty's face, and McVries sat down, in an almost guru-like stance, smiling up at Garraty.

In that moment, everything Ray Garraty knew about life was challenged. Here was Pete McVries, one of the bravest people he'd ever known, giving up.

He remembered what McVries had said. _Make my death the best thing that ever happened to me._

So he would. McVries had had a sick, sick life and Ray Garraty would give him what Priscilla never gave him. So Garraty forgot about Jan, forgot about his mother, and grabbed McVries by the shoulders and kissed him.

It was a long, hard kiss and could only be described as wet and sloppy. Garraty's hands traveled to McVries' face and he traced the scar on his cheek, because this was the last time he'd ever feel Peter McVries alive. He wanted to touch McVries everywhere, just to have that one last thing.

"Thank you," McVries whispered as they broke apart. He could feel the shocked silence of the crowd all around him. Then a cheer rose up, a cheer for star-crossed lovers 47 and 63.

And then the desperation set in and Garraty began to scream at the soldiers to shoot him instead, and for the first time in his life, Peter McVries was finally content. He looked at Garraty, looked straight into Garraty's beautiful, dark brown eyes, and then in a split second everything was dark.

.

.

.

**rolls off a cliff i am so done with this book and this life **


End file.
